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GreekBlueFalcon |
What are the best MSS? |
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In your opinion, what are the best manuscripts, and why?
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gconan |
Re: What are the best MSS? | ||
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The Apparatus of a Critical Text
"The real text of the sacred writers does not now (since the originals have been so long lost) lie in any MS. or edition, but is dispersed in them all. 'Tis competently exact indeed in the worst MS. now extant; nor is one article of faith or moral precept either perverted or lost in them; choose as awkwardly as you will, choose the worst by design, out of the whole lump of readings ... Make your 30,000 [variations] as many more, if numbers of copies can ever reach that sum: all the better to a knowing and a serious reader, who is thereby more richly furnished to select what he sees genuine. But even put them into the hands of a knave or a fool, and yet with the most sinistrous and absurd choice, he shall not extinguish the light of any one chapter, nor so disguise Christianity, but that every feature of it will still be the same." Richard Bentley, Remarks upon a Late Discourse of Free Thinking, in a Letter to F.H., D.D., by Phileleutherus Lipsiensis (London, 1713), Part I, Section 32. |
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Euthymius |
Re: What are the best MSS? | ||
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One should also to this add Bentley's further comment:
"It is good, therefore ... to have more anchors than one; and another MS. to join with the first would give more authority, as well as security .... A third, therefore, and so a fourth, and still on, are desirable, that by a joint and mutual help all the faults may be mended .... 'Tis a good providence and a great blessing, that so many manuscripts of the New Testament are still amongst us; some procured from Egypt, others from Asia [Minor], others found in the Western churches. For the very distances of places, as well as numbers of the books, demonstrate that there could be no collusion, no altering nor interpolating one copy by another, nor all by any of them .... Where the copies of any author are numerous, though the various readings always increase in proportion, there the text, by an accurate collation of them made by skliful and judicious hands, is ever the more correct, and comes nearer to the true words of the author." Richard Bentley, Remarks upon a Late Discourse of Free Thinking, quoted in Samuel P. Tregelles, _An Account of the Printed Text of the Greek New Testament_ (London: Bagster, 1854), 50-51. |
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GreekBlueFalcon |
Re: What are the best MSS? | ||
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Yet did not Bentley assume that it was possible for 90% of the MSS to be wrong on any given occasion?
I know some say Vaticanus (B/03) is the best MS of the NT, and usually the same people say that Nestle-Aland 27th ed. (NA27) is the best representation of the NT text. Yet my own collations and counting of these two documents reveal the following: NA27, number of words in Gospels: 64,355 B/03, number of words in Gospels: 63,995 That is a difference of 360 words. Of course this says nothing about substitutions, additions and omissions that would alter the end number. BTW, Aleph/01 has 63,409 words in the Gospels, 946 words fewer than NA27. Any comments? |
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gconan |
Re: What are the best MSS? | ||
Quote: I take it that his point was that even non-exact readings were still acurate, that even errors cound not conceal the truth of the Gospel. Quote: It probably is the best, but it is just one single manuscript among many good ones. To rely on a single manuscript alone is not good. God has furnished us with to many good ones to rely on a single one, no matter if it is the best or not. Quote: That's a lot of counting, thanks for the numbers. |
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GreekBlueFalcon |
Re: What are the best MSS? | ||
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So should we follow a consensus of the best MSS at any given spot, or do we have to try to figure out the best reading from all the MSS for every single variant in the NT? What is your opinion, gconan, and yours, Euthimius?
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Euthymius |
Re: What are the best MSS? | ||
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In the portion gconan quoted: Bentley clearly warned against following the aberrancies which might attend specific variant readings that appear only in individual MSS (although Bentley equally pointed out that no item of scriptural teaching or doctrinal truth would be lost or negated were but a single MS followed).
In the portion that I quoted: Bentley clearly suggested that the best course and the strongest safeguard against error appeared to be the following of a reasonable consensus text derived from a multiplicity of MSS, particularly when such are taken from various times and locales. Bentley appears to me to have been correct on both counts. |
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gconan |
Re: What are the best MSS? | ||
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try to figure out the best reading from all the MSS for every single variant in the NT.
Even the so called "best" are not right alot of times, but the true reading is always in some group of witness. |
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gconan |
Re: What are the best MSS? | ||
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BTW GreekBlueFalcon, you never stated your position on the matter? What would you use for a copy text, and would you depart from it on occasion?
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Holy Bible |
Re: What are the best MSS? | ||
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News alert!!!
Many Manuscripts have been discovered,just outside of Jerusalem.American and Israel are working together,uncovering and working on the discoveries. Looks like they agree with the Textus receptus!! Now,lets see if this is a cruel hoaX. You can find the article at lfnexus. |
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GreekBlueFalcon |
what is the best MS? | ||
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Like an eclectic, I don't believe a perfect text is found in any one MS. I think I agree with Bentley's voiced methodology that, generally speaking, in any genealogically related MS tradition relative safety is found in numbers. But even this will yield many places where the numbers are split nearly evenly in 2 or more directions, and there, IMO, is where internal canons of textual criticism must be applied in ernest. I'm still trying to figure out the reasoned eclectic position that explains the historical copying process whereby many so-called original readings ended up in only 5 or fewer MSS, but where the consensus of MSS still has the original reading more often than not. What historical copying process allowed this to happen?
By simply looking at the apparatus of NA27, one can see how the consensus is followed more often than not against any minority reading. This seems to suggest that safety is in numbers, and that minority readings are likely branches and shoots off of the big trunk of the original hand. So what is the best MS? Presumably the one that stays within the big trunk of the original hand the highest percentage of the time. What exact MS this is I myself have no idea. Cheers, Bluefalcon |
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dcofchrist |
Re: what is the best MS? | ||
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The problem is the Majority readings come in much later than the minority. So the Trunk theory does not work in relation to time. Circa the Category system put forth by Aland and Aland. As certain readings tend to be put in certain time and do not appear before a given time.
The majority rules allows certain readings to appear much later 600+ years in some cases after the work was written. Therefore should the majority rule if the reading has no early MSS to atest to it? |
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dcofchrist |
Re: What are the best MSS? | ||
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It takes months if not years to determine the contents of MSS. I cannot find any information on this. Only an ancient Egyptian MSS about 5,000 YO in Google News. If the Israel is working with America it is likely OT MSS and not NT ones. Therefore the Textus Recepticus would not be a consideration. But the BHS Hebrew which has had 8 modifications in 500 years even the DSS backed the Masoretic Text on most readings.
Typical KJO nonsense. Care to provide a link on this story? |
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Euthymius |
Re: what is the best MS? | ||
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DC: The majority rules allows certain readings to appear much later 600+ years in some cases after the work was written. Therefore should the majority rule if the reading has no early MSS to atest to it?
Given (a) that the early pre-4th century papyri now confirm the existence of many "majority" readings that previously had *no* attestation prior to the 4th century; (b) that some of those papyrus supported "late Byzantine" readings are now accepted as original (e.g. by Zuntz and others), despite their prior lack of pre-fourth century attestation; (c) and that people like Colwell, Kilpatrick, and Elliott have consistently maintained that virtually *every* sensible variant reading had its origin during the second century -- it thus seems quite unreasonable to presume that a "majority" reading found among extant MSS today cannot be original merely because some ancient papyrus to confirm such has not yet been found; nor to presume either that such a reading never existed in the early period; nor to presume that such a reading could not be considered as possibly original. Prior to the discovery of p75 in 1955, textual scholars were doubting whether the Alexandrian texttype actually existed during the pre-4th century era, and some (like Kenyon and Streeter in the 1940s) were ready to abandon that notion --until p75 changed everything. If one is a *true* reasoned or rigorous eclectic, *all* readings must be examined for possible originality, and internal criteria in this regard become of primary importance, even more so than the external existence of various MSS, simply for the reasons mentioned above. |
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StevenAvery |
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Hi Folks,
Euthymius wrote:What Maurice Robinson points out is that a later large preponderance of a reading in the Greek line means it must have existed early, even if it is not extant in our small number of early uncials. There is not a vector of transmission that can otherwise account for, say, hundreds or thousands of manuscripts in diverse locales and hands and times, which might be 70, 80 or 90 or more percent of the Greek manuscripts, all having a reading. A type of backwards vector analysis insists that these readings must have been early. If they do not exist in a few early uncials that has virtually no significance probabalistically and only reflects the dearth of extant early uncials. Along with the results of the major overhauls and discontinuities that affected the scribal copying process. Before anyone asks, Maurice is right in his basic theory here, even on those verses where the Greek Byzantine/majority text is not the Received Text. In such cases the variant had to arise early, whether or not the Greek majority text has ancient support. In other words, the proof of an early existence of a variant is still not proof of its originality. The omission of Acts 8:37 and the purer versions of John 1:18 and 1 Timothy 3:16 all had to be early, whatever the uncial situation. That along does not force either side of the divide to be original. Euthymius wrote:All of this is true. What might be interesting is to look at two sets. The variants where the papyrus changed the field. e.g. Five or ten of those readings. Then look to see whether the minority reading now early-confirmed had, generally, Old Latin or Vulgate support, internal/textual characteristics (e.g. omission/interpolation versus alternative reading, lectio difficilior, etc.), early church writer support, Peshitta support or other characteristics of note. Then you would do a similar analysis of other Majority readings that are textually given short shrift in modern textcrit and have not found papyrus support, thus they are still on the outs. In both groups you would also be interested as to whether the Majority reading is the Received Text reading. Euthymius wrote:Amen. And that is speaking conservatively. Shalom, Steven Avery
Last Edited By: StevenAvery
12/10/2008 13:34:30.
Edited 2 times.
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MacGyver |
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My theory is that most of the authors of the Bible wrote their accounts more than once, which would mean that many (not all) of the variant readings
that we have are correct and are from the same author. I don't rely on an either-or, but I prefer to have a good variant apparatus. That being said, I
also believe that there are some NT Aramaic texts that are not translations from Greek but of the originals that were written, because why would the
authors just write only one copy of their accounts and only put it into one language when they all spoke more than one language and so did most of everyone who
lived in that area.
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Tatermonkey |
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TR or NA 26th , doesn't truly matter , your gonna get the same message no matter what.
Last Edited By: Tatermonkey
02/15/2009 03:47:33.
Edited 1 times.
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bible maverick |
P-46 is The Single Earliest Fragment | ||
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Just speaking of fragments, the p=46 is a wonderful document. It contains all of Hebrews and most of the Pauline letters It has been dated to the first century
making it extremely old. It's all in Greek uncial and is used by Frank Daniels in his NT translation entitled A Non-Ecclesiastical New Testament.
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OOG Rs |
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tatermonkey " TR or NA26th doesn't truly matter, your gonna get the same message no matter what."
Just minus a few thousand words or so. NOT TO MENTION A FEW HANDFUL OF VERSES YOU COULD NEVER READ OR QUOTE IN NA. WHY? BECAUSE THEY ARE NOT THERE. |
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Exodus Six Verse Three |
What are the best MSS? | ||
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Has any one found a Hebrew MSS that supports the name "Yahweh", which so many Hebrew Scholars believe is the best representation of the original
pronuncviation of God's Name.?
Has any one found the Hebrew MMS that Ben Chayyim used to produce his [printed on a printing press Extant Masoretic Text] in which "(Y)Jehovah occurs 6518 times. (Y)Jehovah occurs less that 50 times in the extant Leningrad Codex of 1008-1010, which does not provide support for the Text of King James Bible. Exodus |
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Tatermonkey |
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OOG Rs wrote:habla habla habla, tu comprende nada ya que usted es un idiota total y completa
Matthew 6:34
"So do not worry about tomorrow; for tomorrow will care for itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own. |
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